Michigan Department of Corrections says more than $320 million in facility repairs are needed over five years

Kyle Kaminski, OS administrator and legislative liaison for the Michigan Department of Corrections, told the Michigan House Appropriations Subcommittee that the department has identified more than $320 million in known capital improvement needs across its 26 facilities.

Kaminski said the department divides work projects into two categories: "the facility, physical plant, and infrastructure work projects, and then the non facility work projects." He told the committee the state’s newest prison, Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia, opened in February 2001, while Marquette Branch Prison has been in service since 1889, and that aging buildings and 24/7 operations increase maintenance demands.

The nut of Kaminski’s presentation was funding and timing. He said facilities maintain five-year capital plans that, when compiled, amount to about $280,000,000 for single-facility projects plus more than $40,000,000 in multi-facility projects (for example, the Jackson complex), producing a total "somewhere north of $320,000,000" in known needs. He added that emergent repairs — such as HVAC failures and repeated water-main breaks at Woodland Correctional Facility — add further, unspecified costs.

Kaminski outlined how work projects function under the state's budget process: most facility operating lines are dedicated to a named facility and can be the source for a work project that carries unspent appropriations forward. "Right now, if you aggregate all of those... it's about $215,000,000," he said, describing that amount as the total available in facility-tied work-project balances. Of that $215 million, he said nearly $100 million is already allocated to specific planned projects and roughly $115 million remains to be allocated as projects are sequenced.

He emphasized the operational constraints that make repairs lengthy and complex: many capital projects must occur inside secure perimeters while facilities remain in operation, requiring sequencing, contractor escorts and significant planning that often stretches projects beyond a single fiscal year. "Most of our larger projects take more than a year to plan, bid, and complete," Kaminski said.

Committee members asked how security-technology purchases fit into that structure. Kaminski said contraband-prevention technology — for example, body scanners — would generally be funded from non-facility work projects or from current-year appropriations such as a contraband prevention fund added in recent budgets. He said every facility now has a body scanner, generally placed in front administration areas, and that the department has begun piloting package scanners at two facilities; those package scanners have been purchased for most facilities but are being piloted operationally.

Kaminski also noted the department’s recent progress after a period of deferred maintenance following the 2008–09 budget downturn, but said the cumulative backlog and new emergent repairs mean the department will continue to request work projects and to coordinate sequencing with the State Budget Office.

The presentation did not propose new legislation or record a committee vote on funding; Kaminski said work projects are sought as part of regular budget and fiscal-year-end procedures.